Rebirth (Open) Fire -- fire through his veins, through his chest, down his arm -- fire dropped him to his knees, then further. Further, down to the unyielding stone floor, the cold and damp bedrock that had never been coated with a civilized floor. He gasped air but couldn't breathe. His heart had never been strong. The opium. He could blame the opium, but he never would have given it up. He always knew... He always knew... The cellars, his agonied thoughts whispered, would be his sepulcher; the Opera House would be his mausoleum.
There was no transition. One minute, he lay face-down in the 11th cellar of the Paris Opera house, was sure his heart was ready to burst. The next, he was flat on his back with the warm sunshine on his face -- and how long had it been since he felt that -- with no pain whatsoever in his chest. His first thought was Heaven?... But laughter, short, derisive, bubbled from his lips a moment after the thought populated. There could be no heaven for creatures like himself. The next, then, was sheer and utter panic. He was outside. In the day. And --
A pale hand slapped at his face. No mask. No mask! Again, no transition. He was on his feet, hand slapped firmly over the ruined half of his face, looking frantically for some sort of shelter, only --
Only.
He stopped. Everything stopped. What used to feel like slick, poreless ice under his hand was now warm and ... normal. Nothing disfigured... nothing scarred... Hesitantly, Erik ran his hand over what used to be a wreck of a face and found only what every other person would have found: a face.
Slowly, he dropped his hand from where he'd been pressing it. What in the world had just happened? His eyes were adjusting to the light. He was in a field. No. It was a park. He was in a park. There was a squat, ugly bench beside a smooth walkway. And behind the gates of the park, a strange City. He squinted. Every instinct told him to take cover; every shred of logic told him that he needed to find out what had happened and where he was. For the moment, he sat down. And then, reverently, touched his once-ruined cheek again.